Crowd control

Indice

Crowd control (commonly shortened to CC) is a blanket term used in League of Legends to describe abilities or spells that remove or diminish the control a target unit has over aspects of itself - aspects such as being able to cast spells or initiate movement commands. As crowd controls impact a unit's combat ability, they are essentially more specialized forms of debuffs - however, this ability to directly hinder a unit's ability to fight means that crowd controls are often given significantly more importance in regular gameplay than normal debuffs, resulting in their special classification.

There are many different forms of crowd control in League of Legends, each of which is unique in the way it affects its target and the ways it can - if at all - be resisted, mitigated or removed. Some crowd controls can be exclusive or near-exclusive to certain champions or items, and different champions can apply the same crowd control in multiple different ways. A few specific mechanics (such as Yasuo'sLast BreathLast Breath) even require a catalyst crowd control to function.

Nearsight prevents the activation of "long ranged" abilities, which seems to include any ability that can input targets via the minimap. By virtue of disabling the second cast, Nearsight will interrupt Elastic SlingshotElastic Slingshot. This may be a bug, although it is thematically appropriate for an effect that removes the target's ability to see.

Crowd control applied by one's self or an ally cannot be countered in any way (neither reduced, resisted, nor removed), with the exception of self-slows.

Categorization

To facilitate easier communications, crowd controls are usually described under one of the following systems:

Loss of Control

Crowd controls are grouped into one of two categories depending on whether or not the effect removes total control of the player's character. Hard CC completely removes all control of a character, while soft CC only partially removes it.

Modifiers

Crowd controls are categorized by what their effects inhibit. Movement modifiers in some way inhibit the ability to move, while action modifiers in some way inhibit the ability to attack or cast abilities.

Increasing the duration of Crowd Control

Each mark reduces the target's tenacity by 30% or in other words, increases the duration of incoming Crowd Control by 30% (including Airborne effects).

Countering Crowd Control

Crowd control can be countered in various different ways.

Immunity

Units that are immune to crowd control will completely negate any attempt at its application on the recipient. This does not, however, necessarily mean the user is now also unaffected by crowd controls already applied.

All forms of crowd control currently in League of Legends can be prevented with CC immunity.

While not specific to crowd control, spell shields can be considered to provide pseudo-CC immunity against a single spell, but this is not guaranteed - abilities that do not interact with spell shields (such as Karthus'Karthus'Wall of PainWall of Pain) will still apply any attached crowd controls if possible.

Deferral

Similar to immunity, abilities that defer crowd control will negate their effects while the ability is active, but any CC still present will be applied after the duration ends. CC duration will still tick down during the immunity period.[2]

Removal

Most types of crowd control can be removed after it has been applied - with the exception of Mikael's CrucibleMikael's Crucible, the ability or item in question can still be activated while affected by the CC it removes, even when that CC normally precludes ability or item usage.

Stasis effects cannot be removed. Ground effect can be removed only by basic moving out from affected area. Nearsight effect can be removed only by Quicksilver Sash'sQuicksilver Sash's active. Airborne effects are removable only by other move blocks (airborne effect, dash or blink); airborne effects will still apply for the rest of their duration if not removed by other airborne effect (although they can be prevented and removing their stun component allows to completely remove them by consecutively using own dash or blink). Stasis makes units untargetable and completely prevents ability usage even for abilities that can be activated under CC (thus making whether it can be removed or not a moot question).

Reduction

Crowd control reduction reduces the duration of crowd control effects by a percentage equal to its value. Sources of CC duration reduction will stack multiplicatively with each other, not additively - successive buys can only approach, not reach, 100% reduction. Crowd control reduction can sometimes be referred to as Tenacity.

Ground, nearsight, stasis, suppression and move block part of airborne are not affected by crowd control reduction and will always apply for their full duration. Stun part of airborne effect is affected by crowd control reduction.

Potency Reduction

This effect is unique to the slow crowd control; potency reduction reduces the effectiveness, or percentage, of movement slows by a percentage equal to its value. Sources of slow potency reduction stack multiplicatively with each other, but do not interact with normal crowd control reduction.

Only slows are affected by potency reduction.

Self-CC

The following effects are comparable to crowd control, except that the effect is caused voluntarily and affects the user rather than a target. These effects cannot be removed by cleansing mechanisms and will ignore all crowd control immunity and reduction except in the case of self-slows, which will be affected by slow potency reduction (such as from Boots of SwiftnessBoots of Swiftness).

Self-Disarm: A champion that disarms itself is unable to attack for a duration. The target may still move and cast spells.

Cast Times and Channels

The casting (sometimes "charging") of an ability cannot be cancelled by the player or an enemy except by death. Forced actions (such as taunt) will have no effect for the duration of the cast, and using airborne effects to move the player will not affect the trajectory of the skill - which will start from the point of cast, not from the player's current location. Summoner spells and most items can still be activated while casting.

The channelling of an ability, by contrast, can be cancelled by hard CC, and will also automatically cancel should the champion attempt to perform another action (such as movement, casting another ability or attacking) - there do exist exceptions to this rule, such as Sion'sSion'sSoul FurnaceSoul Furnace cast while channelling Decimating SmashDecimating Smash, but these are usually specific coding allowances and not standard behaviour. Summoner spells and most items can typically be activated mid-channel without disrupting it.

Channelling and casting animations are generally not considered forms of crowd control, however disruptive they may be. There do exist several notable exceptions, however:

Channelled Self-Pacify: These abilities will make champion unable to issue attack commands, other abilities, FlashFlash or TeleportTeleport. The champion may still freely move and use other summoner spells while channelling. The only example also slows the champion for the duration.

Channelled Self-Stun: The following abilities have channels that the user cannot voluntarily interrupt (contrary to most channels which will be interrupted if any attempt is made to move, attack, or use another ability). This is effectively comparable to a stun.

Trivia

If abilities that share cooldowns or are unique to different forms are counted separately, then Gnar possesses the highest number of crowd control abilities in the game, at six, with NautilusNautilus and KarmaKarma tying for second place, at four. Otherwise, if they are counted as shared, NautilusNautilus and Gnar possess the most, at four.